I Had A Gilmore Girl
by KateToast
Summary: A Christopher musing, following his rocky relationship with the Gilmore girls. One-shot. Implied LL.


**Disclaimer**: Gilmore Girls is owned by Amy Sherman-Palladino, Warner Bros., and all those other rich, smart people.

**A/N**: Just myfeeble attempt at a Christopher musing about his rocky relationship with the Gilmore girls over the years, because I haven't seen that many around. Takes place the morning after _Wedding Bell Blues_.

**I Had A Gilmore Girl**

**XXX**

If I've learned anything in the thirty-six years of my life, it's that the universe has a horrible sense of humor. And it seems that, once they screw with you once, they keep on doing similar acts for their own sick pleasure.

I mean, look at me. I got a girl pregnant at sixteen.

Sometimes it's hard to believe that I had a Gilmore girl at one time. It's doubly hard to believe sometimes that she ever liked me back.

She kissed me first. The best day of my life was the day when she came up to me in that parking lot and kissed me. That day changed me. She'll never understand what I felt at that moment, or that I still carry those same feelings towards her now, twenty-two years later. She was this smart, witty, beautiful, incredible girl (still is, except now she's a woman), and she liked me.

We were perfect for each other. It was like she and I were put on this earth for the sole purpose of ending up together. Her parents seemed to approve of me (well, I know now that Emily never liked me that much), my parents found her… suitable, and we both came from upper-class families whose names really meant something when you heard them. We went to camp together, we had the same friends, went to the same school, and our parents were the best of friends.

Yeah, it was like destiny.

Then I got her pregnant.

I tried to act as calm and cool as I could when she told me, and kept up that act when we told our parents. Hell, I proposed, and she turned me down. We were sixteen, for God's sake! She was pregnant, so naturally we'd get married, I'd get a job, and we'd live in her parent's house until we had enough money to support ourselves. It was as simple as that.

But no. Matters can never be solved simply with her.

She refused. I asked a total of seven times over the course of six months, and she declined every time. I tried to persuade her, even tried to force her. Her parents, my parents, even some of our friends (who found this event more interesting than TV, let me tell you), tried to talk her into saying yes, and before I could say or do anything else, she'd dropped out of school.

She'd always had the final say in our relationship. No meant no.

So I became distant. Can you blame me? I get this girl pregnant, and then she won't marry me so we can be a family? It's not like we knew how to go about these things; we were sixteen.

I know I was immature back then. I definitely could never compare to her, even today. She was beyond her years.

So then that little baby girl was born. Rory. She was beautiful. Of course, back then I'd never say that out loud. I was nearly seventeen; I didn't really have any words to describe my daughter.

I had school to worry about, and mother and daughter seemed fine, so my visits weren't as often as I now wish they had been. Before I knew it, the girl- _woman_- I was in love with had run away with our child. I didn't even find out where they were until months later.

Stars Hollow. It had sounded familiar. I realized later that it was a tiny town we'd driven through right after I'd gotten my license. I still wonder today what made her retreat there.

I graduated, sans the girl I'd planned on spending the rest of my life with. She had finally called me days before I left high school forever, but I never got an invitation to visit she and Rory in Stars Hollow. Back then, I didn't even mind. I had a lot to think about.

I wasn't going to college, which made me a disappointment to my parents. Emily and Richard were still very angry over me getting their daughter pregnant. My "friends" all abandoned me the second they had their diplomas in hand.

I did a lot of soul-searching. There were monthly calls to my ex-girlfriend and daughter. I flitted from job to job, trying to find one that stuck. Of course, she got a job the moment she'd gotten to Stars Hollow. She was amazing like that.

Years passed in a blur. I started meeting up with the mother-daughter duo whenever I was in Connecticut. Rory was, and still is, a brilliant kid, just like her mom, who was breathtaking, with the added bonus of that humor. They raved about some diner in town, and its owner, who supposedly had become one of their favorite people Stars Hollow, even though he was "cranky, gruff, and hated being called Duke".

One thing was the same, though: I was still in love with the girl I'd been in love with since I was fourteen.

Then I went to California to start up my own company that flopped pretty quickly, which led me back to my girls. By then, they were living comfortably in the small town; loved by everybody, of course, and my little girl was sixteen with a boyfriend and everything. She and I had started up weekly phone calls only a few years before, and I tried my hardest to never miss them.

I'd thought for sure that that was the time… we were finally going to work it out, and be that perfect family that everyone had expected us to be. My father was an ass, sure, but even that didn't seem like something that could mess this up.

But no. She sleeps with me, but refuses to commit at all. To this day I don't know what that whole time between us meant. I probably was a little crazy for asking her to marry me, but for me, it was just another blow to my heart. She was babbling on about not doing something with her friend like she'd promised, while I didn't really give a damn.

Maybe I would have, if I had known which friend exactly.

After that, I tried my hardest to get over her. So when she called me, months later, from her bachelorette party, I was actually okay with the news.

Enter Sherry Tinsdale.

I loved her (part of me still does today, too). Maybe not in the way I loved my first daughter's mother, but I loved her all the same. I even tried balancing Sherry with my fatherly duties to Rory.

And then the once-love of my life kissed me. But this time, I didn't ask her to marry me for the millionth time. I stuck with Sherry.

And then we had that fight. And then Sherry and I slowly drifted apart, until I no longer felt like we had any sort of connection anymore. And then some punk got into a car accident with Rory in the passenger seat. (And then she dated the guy!)

And then… well, I set myself up again. Except, so did she.

We were both ready. It was the perfect time. No Sherry, no Max, no problems to complicate the relationship between us. I'd finally gotten my dream girl, after waiting sixteen plus years.

The fates really must hate me.

I only got to spend one day, and not even a full one, as the object of that amazing woman's eye, before everything went to hell again.

Sherry was pregnant. What are the odds of that happening twice in a guy's life?

I had to do the right thing. So I did. Which made my blue-eyed girls livid with me for a long time.

And then Georgia was born, and all I could think about was supporting my family. And this time, they actually let me do so.

I missed Rory's graduation. She was understanding, and so was her mother, but I could tell deep down that the Gilmore girls were disappointed in me again. My eighteen-year-old daughter said all the important people, besides me, were going to be there: Mom, Emily and Richard, Sookie and Jackson, and Luke.

I don't know why I didn't pick up on it sooner. The constant mentions, the stories, the way Rory would tell me happily how he'd built her something, or done something for her like put out some balloons with a coffee cake for her sixteenth birthday, or how her mother's voice would become almost distant when his name came up, and I could tell she was thinking of him in some far-away place in her mind that was reserved for only the deepest and most secretive thoughts.

Rory told me during our phone calls and occasional coffee dates about the updates in her new life at Yale, and how her mother was dealing with being by herself. She'd told me that her mom was dating Richard's business partner, she'd told me about Dean's marriage, and about Luke's sudden nuptials- and divorce.

The woman I'd known since we were in diapers, however, did not share as much information when I'd call just to check in.

By last spring, we hadn't spoken in months. In fact, the first time I actually spoke to her again was after Sherry had left me and GG for Paris.

I should've noticed it then. She'd seemed brighter, happier, even perkier, and that was really something, since she was the most vibrant person I knew. With Sherry gone, those feelings were returning; the ones I had stored away only a few years prior.

She was different. And then I found out why from Rory: she was dating someone new.

I put that tidbit in the back of my mind, but did as my eldest daughter requested and stayed away from her mother. But when that amazing woman called me up, asking to have lunch, I couldn't say no.

It didn't end well at all, and I hated being on bad terms with Rory. I was surprised, though, when I never got a call returning my message from her mom.

My father was sick, and that made me realize that I really needed my relationship with Rory to be good, because she was such an important person in my life. And, after much badgering and the news of my father's death, she came around, as did the woman who I now found myself falling back in love with.

She came over, and we spent the night drinking. I really don't remember what we talked about; all I can recall is the fact that I wanted to kiss her. I didn't, though. I decided to wait. Maybe our third (fourth? fifth?) chance was coming up.

Emily showed up at my apartment, telling me to go after her daughter. So I did.

And here I am now, just getting over the horrendous hangover I'd received from drinking way too much at Emily and Richard's vow renewal.

She looked so beautiful in her blue dress, standing up at the altar. Though I had come in late, I had seen her looking at someone in the front row, but hadn't been able to see their face at all during the ceremony.

The reception finally let me see this man that was making her so bright and happy and even perkier; the man my own daughter had stood up for against me.

Luke. Of course it was Luke. How could I have been so blind?

I hated him the moment I saw him standing with the woman I was planning to steal away from him. How comfortable they looked together. She was nervous when they greeted me, for sure, but I could tell just by their body language that they were in love.

She was- _is_- in_ love_ with a man. And he wasn't- _isn't_- me, as usual. Though, I've never seen her with any boyfriend-type before, so I couldn't be completely sure.

But the way she leaned on his shoulders as they watched her parents dance, and how she whispered in his ear until he rolled his eyes and got up to join her on the dance floor, and how they smiled and laughed and just gazed at each other while they moved together, it was obvious.

My Gilmore girl was definitely in love.

I drank a lot, which I'm reminded about right now as I nurse this pounding headache. Seeing Rory in that compromising position with that blonde guy didn't help matters, and the way Luke just got in there like he was her biological father or something pissed me off beyond belief. First, he steals the love of my life, and then my role as Rory's father?

I hardly remember what I said to him, but his brutally truthful comments about how I wasn't around are now imprinted in my brain. They hurt, more than I'd ever care to share with anyone. I hadn't even known if Rory had had the chicken pox or not, and her mother had never mentioned Luke helping move Rory into Yale. He went to her graduation in my place.

I lost it. I yelled about the relationship not lasting, how it was only for "for now", and about how even Emily wanted her daughter and I together. I got some satisfaction out of that diner man's shocked expression.

Bottom line: I knew that if there was any guy Lorelai Victoria Gilmore was going to spend the rest of her life with, I could tell just by those few hours watching them that Luke Danes was that guy.

I was jealous. I wanted to be that guy so badly. But I wasn't. It'd always been Luke in the back of her mind, not me, like I'd always thought it was.

After he stormed out, Lorelai's parting words were spat so venomously that I had to actually back up. I stopped pursuing her after Marilyn took her away for the picture and caught a cab home not long after that.

Now that I can think clearly again, I'm getting anxious.

I've been in love with Lorelai for twenty-two years. We grew up together, we understand each other. We have a daughter together.

And yet, in looking at everything from a different angle, it seems that this has been the universe's plan all along: give me a dream girl, give us a daughter, but make it not work out, and then have her find her own other half who serves coffee and burgers and is handy around the house and dependable in some tiny town that has at least two festivals every damn month. Have my daughter see him as more of a father-figure than me.

Sometimes it's hard to believe I had a Gilmore girl at one time. In fact, I had two, and not that long ago. But now, because the universe has decided to make me the biggest idiot in the world, I don't think I have either anymore. Rory looks up to him and loves him as a great guy who's always cared for her. Lorelai loves him in that special place in her heart that seems to have never been opened up to any man before.

If I could go back in time to give my fourteen-year-old-self some advice, it would be this: Love Lorelai Gilmore. Try to be as involved in Rory's life as you can. Don't let the girls slip away from you.

Oh, and watch out for Luke Danes. He'll sweep them away from you, right under your nose.

**XXX**

_End._


End file.
